


No Longer Friends

by honeymink



Category: Everwood
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:52:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeymink/pseuds/honeymink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the songs are sounding out of tune</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Longer Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic I've ever written. A long long time ago.

It had been years since their last date and there was no way he’d say yes after all this time. Still Laynie Hart seriously thought about asking Ephram Brown to the prom. Maybe she had a masochistic streak after all. 

She remembered the day at the lake when they went ice skating. Telling Amy that she’d still like to hang out with Ephram even if they weren’t an item might have been true then. But it wasn’t any longer. 

It sucked how life became less casual with age. 

In spite of that, things had been more than casual with all those Billies, Bobbies and Barries, she had met at community college parties. Those who tried to win her favour by burning her carelessly assembled mixed CDs. Technology spoiled all the possibilities of establishing a guy’s real intentions. So maybe those complications had nothing to do with age after all. 

She had tried to be enthusiastic about those guys she had casually dated. About every single one of them. But she just wasn’t… couldn’t be anything but unfeeling.

Laynie knew how being in love felt. 

Being in love felt like sweaty hands, a pounding heart and nervous laughs despite trying to act cool and make a good impression. It felt like being okay with being stuck in Craptown, CO and even getting a taste for Everwood’s lost and faded glamour. It felt like it was the easiest thing to get up early in the morning even though you’re tired because you lay awake all night thinking about how exciting the coming day would be – just because you’d see *him*. 

Between the bunnies and the parcel-delivery, between ice skating and holding hands, between pinks and provincial jazz, she had felt something. And life became less casual once you allowed feelings. So maybe the loss of casualty had to do with love.

The thing was, once she did it, once she admitted her feelings and asked, there was no going back. They might not have become friends after the end of their not so casual dating, but they were still friendly… on good terms so to speak, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to lose that safety though it was a dull one, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to make a fool out of herself.

A friend and some advice would have been nice now. But Amy was locked away in a rehab clinic and within the exclusive group of Page and Kayla and the likes, she never felt comfortable. She might sit with them at lunch, but she had the feeling they only accepted her out of habit. Because she had been the sister of Homecoming King Colin Hart – and therefore part of the “Royal Family”. That damn palace had been reduced to rubble a long time ago. 

In the end there wasn’t any safety anyway and keeping her dignity on the outside wouldn’t make a difference, wouldn’t make her happy on the inside. 

In the end it was all about taking the risk.

***

Coming out of trigonometry class he saw her leaning against his locker. 

“Laynie – you look pale today,” he said while by looking at her he recognised that he hadn’t seen her in a long time. And wasn’t that funny? They attended the same school… and still. “Since when is your hair that dark?”

“We’re no longer friends. No reason to pretend…” she said, and it seemed as if she was suddenly aware that now she had lost or gained everything. 

He paused in his move, stared at her, waited, confused about what would come next.

Suspicion on his mind, he observed her: her palms sweating; her heart pounding – tense, short fits of hiccups escaped her throat. Something appeared to seem hilarious to her, or absurd perhaps.

“You want to go to the prom with me?”

***

 _Careless love_.

The question was asked and suddenly she thought that though she expected him to say ‘no’, the answer didn’t matter anymore. She was proud she had taken the risk. 

And the minute she recognised, he still owed her an answer; it came – perplexedly yet seriously not casually or coolly.

“Yes… I guess… I mean, I’d like to go with you.”

It had been a lie. Taking the risk was only part of the job, the answer mattered. She had asked him to the prom and he had said ‘yes’ – all those years after their last date.

Laynie Hart could have kissed the whole world now. But she started with Ephram Brown.

 

**~Fin~**


End file.
